Professionalism and campers/bots...

How many times have you gone to a place of business and seen campers or discovered bots racking up traffic to make it seem more popular and wondered why they need to resort to such measures?

I know many use them to boost traffic and game the systems, but that doesn't mean they get business from people. Many I know simply TP out of there and go to the next spot till they find places that are well more professional in my opinion.

I find it even more ironic to see places that are labeled for learning how to do things with the zombies on site to rack up traffic. First thing that I think is "Wow, if their idea of how to do things right is fill the place with bots and rack up traffic... maybe they don't have a clue"

With stores I tend to take a look at the products and then teleport out to the next one. I don't know if it creates a bias, but often I see their products as lower quality than others.

A club resorting to the zombies tend to set off alarm bells that maybe it has no real draw, and is just a build that has no events or a poor quality staff that can not pull in a crowd.

I'm just wondering if anyone else feels the same way. That those gaming the system only really benefit from those that are still newish or don't realize what they are doing.

good post Mort..... I happen to work for a place that used camping. We were in #1 a long time and payed tons for the camping. Camping is now gone from the agency and we have dropped to 3rd place. But we no longer pay out the huge numbers to camping. This showed me many people were just there to drain money from the agency.

Im honest I feel a lot better now knowing that people come because of what we are, not for money. And its so much better to be able to converse with people, not zombies

The problem I see with SL is there are more people that try to run a business than there are people that want to do business with them.. The market is way to flooded with business's.

This makes everyone that runs a business try every trick, underhanded or not, they can find to try and get people to their place. I am surprised LL didn't have a system to limit business's... Like having to buy or lease a business license or something and once a certain number of the same business are already in existence they stop giving them out. Easier than it sounds for sure but it seems to me the economy would be stronger with such a system.

Camping is so out of style now. Now the ones who want to cheat the traffic system create alts and put them in a skybox.

I used to own a club, 30% of my traffic was due to camping. I used a Campmaster and had a very strict policy that any AV that was not active and did not respond to 3 warnings by name would be ejected and banned.

Yeah the alts in the skybox are one of the keys that make me leave. I usually have my minimap up just so I don't bump into someone when still rezzing (tend to move to the sides after tp'ing in)

When I see the swarm up above (or below) I tend to poof quickly afterwards.

But that may be the intent--appealing to the sole market to which the business can sell. For example, there's a particular business that sells unimaginably crappy clothes and tattoos that could only appeal to a newbie who hasn't yet learned about freebies--nor, even, the Library folder. The stuff is cheap, but wouldn't even make it into a decent freebie box. I mean, it's real crap. So, that business uses campers, and has its own Mainland-wide network of display ad towers. The whole point is to attract *exactly* the demographic that doesn't know any better.

And, yeah, when I see a box of bots or camping pads, that's what comes immediately to my mind. I don't always immediately leave, but the perceived value of everything in the store plummets. The thing is, this shouldn't matter to the business owner who was probably never going to sell any of their crap to me anyway.

i've always felt camping and bot boxes were a terrible way to do business..
when i first came to sl i started with a club that was on the rise and made the pop list very quickly..
each day we would go up the list a couple of spots and made it to #3 without camping and bots were not really used back then that i had heard of..
some were in a hurry to reach #1 on the list and they brought in camping to make it to #1..it took a lot out of us that we had gotten so far without them and felt we could reach the top spot in a day or two..
i never knew what camping was until then and didn't even know what a pop list was in sl until that week..i've hated any kind of gaming the search ever since then with fake numbers..

it was hard to say you are the best and feel you really are when you know an edge is being used..

i guess a lot don't care about that feeling though and just want to get up in an area and be seen..

the bots i can see some use of those in some cases..like maybe a skin maker wanting to use them to show off their skins or a shape maker wanting to show shapes ..people using them as manikins so to speak..but to get fake numbers i'll tp out as soon as i see it's being gamed..

I'm sure you don't mean "everyone" literally. In my four weeks of being open for business, I've gradually climbed a bit in the various search listings. I'd love to have a higher traffic number, but I haven't resorted to tricks because I feel the same way as the OP. My traffic numbers have ranged from the 200's to the 700's, nothing very impressive, but those numbers have been generated 100% by legitimate shoppers + me.

I hope that everyone doesn't actually mean everyone
I run a business in SL, but even though I have been at it for almost 2 years I am still very low on the totem pole, and I am happy with that

it means those who purchase my stuff stand less of a chance of running into someone else wearing the same outfit

same can not be said for the big named places heh

and I do not use any underhanded or overhanded or any other kind of handed tricks or otherwise to get ppl to my shop
if they come they come, if not then... not

(I do have two sometimes three bots on location, when remember to log them in, they are my models, nothing more)

From the perspective mind of a former (reformed) camper: When I first joined SL, I had no idea what it was about. What I did quickly learn was that there was this catch called $LIndens, and if I wanted to look like some of the beautiful avatars that I had seen walking around, I had to figure out how to get some. I researched and found out about camping and jobs. Problem for me was that jobs weren't readily offered to newbs..unless you wanted to strip or escort and that just wasn't my goal for being here. Not to mention, most strip joints require a non-newb skin and after researching skins and shapes and the extreme price of them, this was an impossible thing for me to acquire. I hadn't been here long enough to want to pay LL for $Lindens, I wasn't even sure at that point that I was going to continue to stay here and So I camped...and I camped and I camped.

I met people. I started to have fun, I rented some land, put a house on it and quickly ran out of the $L that I had camped my butt off for. Needless to say by that point, I was tired of the camping thing and landed a job hosting Pizza and slingo and made enough to keep my rent paid but not much else. By that time, I knew I was staying and finally surrendered the credit card.

I don't look down my nose at campers, or the people who pay for them to be there. I see camping as how I got started in this world. I see people who pay them to be there, as people who are willing to pay for their numbers. Which is entirely different to me than bots in a box, that to me is truly gaming the system.

It's the same in the real business world, too. People will do anything, sacrifice any virtue, to chase that dollar.

It is definitely the mark of amateurs vs professionals. Some people think that anything to game the numbers is OK and is fair game. However, that mentality works only for so long, and, unfortunately, belies the nature of the way they treat their customers.

It is a good model for a fly-by-night business, which most of the ones who play that game are, but *I* certainly would never buy from them.

In the end, real professional businesses get and keep their customers long-term. Something those who use camping don't and will never understand.

Yeah. There's a store in my home sim that regularly has up to nine traffic bots in two 500m high skyboxes. It's annoying, because if you take 20 avatars in one sim as a general upper limit before huge lag starts to set in, then that's almost half the spots taken up at once. Add to that their customers (usually two or three at any one time) plus me and my partner, and the couple living in the house behind us and their guests, and it's getting quite crowded. Once you add in the child agents* in the next sim (which contains a large housing area), and the big store in the sim behind us, then well...

I won't leave, though. I love our little bit of land and big bit of water too much.

Ironically, the only time I don't 'rubberband' when I walk is after a sim restart when the traffic bots are gone (or if the bots' owner has had to reboot their computer, or whatever).

*No, not kid avatars.

Just make sure you stay at least 2 minutes. You don't want to get banned!

hee, doesn't matter.

I will not be back, and I usually poof after at most a minute.

Understand the economics of advertising.

Perhaps the most critical function of advertising is that it simply lets the world know that a product exists to be sold. If no one knows it exists, then no one can buy it.

Letting the world know that a product exists is a necessary prerequisite to any act of getting a customer to consider whether a product is worth buying.

A new merchant needs to figure out a way to let the world know that the merchant's product exists. In Second Life, gaming Traffic in searches is an easy way to let the world know that the new product exists. As long as a merchant can get the product to show up at the top of a Search, at least the merchant has a fighting chance to compete.

If that merchant survives in the marketplace, then the importance of simply letting the world know the product exists is diminished. The merchant can start to rely more upon repeat business and reputation. The highly placed ad is less effective.

So paying campers can certainly be worthwhile for the new merchant. As the merchant can depend more and more on repeat business and reputation, the value of campers diminishes.

I'll add though that I've seen a few estabilished businesses- that have existed since I've been on Second Life and have always been popular- have recently added camping where they didn't have it before. That's particularly surprising since, from what I've been reading, Traffic will be phased out and campers pointless. I do wonder what these businesses know that I and much of the rest of the Second Life community doesn't.

as a business owner, I can see both sides of this issue. I've never felt that offering camping was cost-effective. Maybe back in the day, but certainly not since the "new search" came out.

But as a business owner, I'm also trapped in a bit of a quandry. I don't have a lot of products.. I get a lot of visitors to my shop, but sales are still kind of flat (I blame the general economy).. But recently I've been working on a "Full Avatar".. and I feel that photos just aren't going to do it justice.

I'd like to set up some "mannequins" in my store, probably just a simple "bot" on a modified posing stand.. something that would allow me to show the full detailed version of the avatar, in 3D, without resorting to temp rezzers or using all the prims in my shop.

So I'm seeing a "Valid use" for a bot in my shop. I'm just afraid that people will see it as some sort of traffic-generation gimmick. The fact is that photos simply can't convey the "feeling" of the avatar in question, and I'd really like people to know what they're buying... if that makes sense.

yes, i don't mind the mannequin bots/campers that show off the products

There are a lot that pictures don't do them justice.

Camping is used for advertising, Amity makes a very good point.

Now there's paid picks, it's about the same thing, making your location relevant. Then there's the alternative of paying 400,000 or so for a top 8 advert, I think more people are likely to use camping or paid picks than pay that sort of money. Big businesses do camping, paid picks and huge sums in advertising.

Many get by just fine with out campers, paid picks, or overpriced ads.

They rely on providing the products or services that people want, with excellent quality that results in word of mouth.

I put paid picks up there with bots in a box.

I see the offer and bye

I think if more and more bothered to show their displeasure by leaving, the market would quickly have to accept gaming the systems will result in less income.

I'd kinda blame a saturated market, I think. There's so many people selling the same kinda stuff, there's no "demand" for what you're supplying.

No, not everyone, just everyone the OP was refering to.

Alas your ethical attitude doesn't deal with the cold hard realities. I see camping, paid picks, money trees, freebie inducements and keyword spamming all over the grid.

Hmm, odd then that many places I go to have none of the above and do quite well.

Some do so well they have to have whole sims devoted to them.

they don't resort to being part of the problem rather than trying to get it fixed.

Some business including mine use bots for other things. i have 3 bots. One is used for marketing data, one is used to show off a product, and one is a receptonist connected to a
server being adapted to answer questions from customers. They are in the open and not hidden away like i see over the grid. Plus those in the know will know a bot after one hour of sitting in the same location stops generating numbers towards the traffic count and the new viewer will hopefully kill off sleek bots anyways.

I have just finished a 7 week study of the search and how it gathers data and what actually does and does not affect how high you rank. gone from page 5 to 2nd in that time, and some interesting results have been noted.

I know other places that have bots in places to welcome guests and offer information.
Get used to bots, they are here to stay and will be getting used for many more tasks than used for now...

Really, funny that because I see very few places that don't engage with camping, money trees, paid picks, humungous priced classifieds or keyword spamming. Can you also document that the places you visit have never ever used such tactics.